Posts with tag scourge-invasion

Once upon a time, World of Warcraft's holiday events were one of my favorite parts of the game. Not only did they make the game world feel alive, they changed the standard day-to-day gameplay routine. When those events went live, I didn't even consider spending my time doing the same daily hubs, reputation grinds, or dungeons I'd been doing all along. There were new quests, light-hearted quests, and the holiday bosses asked me to revisit dungeons I may not have run in ages. I didn't even care much for the loot dropped by those bosses, I just liked seeing and fighting them. Before those bosses became something in the dungeon finder, I ran them as much as I could, just because I knew they'd be gone for a year afterwards. The rewards from quests, even when they were light-hearted items that didn't contribute to a character's power level whatsoever, were fun little short-term goals.

Unfortunately, these events long ago fell to the wayside, receiving few updates beyond increasing the item level of gear drops from bosses. Patch 5.4 introduced a pandaren brewmaster to Brewfest, Love is in the Air's last update was the addition of the Swift Lovebird in patch 4.3.2, but generally speaking, ilevel increases have been the majority of the changes. The focus has been on the Darkmoon Faire more than anything else, which has, itself, become part of the routine. It's understandable that these events have fallen out of production, it's difficult to justify creating temporary content over something more permanent, but I do miss the temporary, fleeting content. More than updates to old events, I'd love to see new events, holidays pulling from Azerothian culture rather than our own, or even events on a smaller scale. Let's kick around some ideas, shall we?

When the Dark Portal threatened to open and Highlord Kruul menaced Azeroth's cities, I was all over it. My guildmates and I raced from city to city trying to find and destroy him. We could not wait to walk the shattered soil of Outland. Similarly, when the zombie plague descended upon the cities of Azeroth, unleashing armies of walking dead upon our streets, I was once again to be found gleefully hacking down this new threat in out of the way places. Technically, that was the second time the undead had flooded the world, the first time being when Naxxramas-40 debuted, and I remember being excited about that, too.

Heck, I was even excited for the first elemental invasions. I farmed Avalanchion for quite some time for a shield I replaced the next day, as I recall.

So basically, as an adventuring sort in the World of Warcraft, I tend to be excited when there are doomsday cults preaching the end of the world. That's steady work for us hero types! I say bring on the chaos, the despair, the waves of elementals lurching out of rifts, the cults spreading fear and treachery. How about you?

Reader Verdus sent us a tip reminding us that this weekend is the one-year anniversary of one of the simultaneously most loved and hated events in WoW's history, the zombiepocalypse. Right around this time last year, infected crates started appearing all over the world, and that expanded out into a full-blown zombie invasion (which was so big it made it out into mainstream news). After the zombie plague had been quelled, the Scourge attacked with full force, leaving us to fall back and fight for our necrotic runes up until the expansion released. It was definitely a huge event, and now, a year later, I'm sure most of us (though not all of us) look back on it with fond memories.

And surely Blizzard learned a lot from what happened a year ago -- Linedan has a nice wrapup of the good and the bad that Blizzard may have taken away from the zombie apocalypse. The idea of turning players on players was great, but that unfortunately led to more griefing than most players would have liked (and the fact that, by the end of it, you couldn't avoid the zombies at all, probably didn't help). And for all of the disruption, there was no real reward (the eventual rewards came with the Scourge invasion, and then it was simply just farming tokens), and no real payoff (the final world event seemed half-cooked, and it was only implied that Arthas was the one who'd shipped the crates).

There have been some truly spectacular visual moments in Azeroth; scenes that make you gasp and glee. I'm thinking of occasions like the Scourge Invasion of Stormwind and Orgrimar or Kael'thas blowing up his room in Tempest Keep. Who can deny Wrathgate was incredible. However, there are also some awesome little animations that really add so much to the game. It's these little things that we can take for granted but sometimes jump out at us as something wonderful.

Even on a hard night of raid wiping in our guild, if someone chugs a stack of Pygmy Oil and /cower's it's bound to bring a laugh. Many a machinima has featured a /dance, from one race or many, with variously spectacular and humorous results.

Who's /flex is better, Draenei or Blood Elf? Have you ever left one of your characters alone for a while and then had their idle-animation surprise you? Are there any actions or animations you wish were in the game? What animations bring a smile to your face?

The World of Warcraft comic train keeps a-rollin' with the upcoming twentieth issue, with this one focusing on everyone's favorite pre-Wrath Scourge invasion. Here's what the official PR solicitation has to say:

The Scourge makes their move and attacks from all fronts intent on taking no prisoners! No longer united, can Varian and Thrall survive the onslaught? And will Valeera once again succumb to her addiction to magical energy?

Oh no, dear readers! Can they? Will she?

I guess you'll just have to pick up the comic. If you need a quick fix, though, you can check out BlizzPlanet's scans of the preview that they've so graciously provided. At a glance, the art seems to be a bit improved over the Onyxia arc (thankfully) and, possibly more importantly, we're finally getting into recent and familiar territory. Heck, the comic's only a few months behind us now! Maybe soon you'll read about yourself killing Yogg-Saron before you even do it.

Blizzard has posted an online preview of the next edition of the World of Warcraft comic book, issue number 19, and it's full of something we love doing: Scourge killin'. Actually, not to spoil it for you (it's only a few pages long), but it looks like the book is revisiting the old attacks on Stormwind (well at least the planned attack on Stormwind) and Ogrimmar right before the last expansion.

I haven't been following the comic book super closely, but it looks like the comic's timeline has just now caught up to the Scourge invasion. It's still fun to see what was going on then, from the big throwdown (that we never actually got to see in-game) on the docks to the other big throwdown between Thrall and Garrosh. Give it a look and if you like it, keep an eye out for the new comic book issue, which should be in stores right now.

Reader Dale from Grim Batol-EU (I don't think that's his character name) sent in a screenshot of the war map the leaders of the Horde stand around while debating their assault on Northrend in the latest (and probably final) stage of the Scourge Invasion. He sent it to us wondering if it holds any hints of future expansions, because the map includes a number of land masses we haven't seen in-game and have only appeared on a few maps of the world we've seen. I think there is something much more dire in the image.

There is no next expansion. Why? Because Northrend isn't even on that map. The Horde is using a map that lacks Northrend to discuss an assault on Northrend. I think I have some idea of how their conversation really went down at their war council. Check it out behind the cut below.

The battles against the Scourge in Stormwind and Orgrimmar continue to rage (once every 20 minutes), but if you're not in a position where you can see the event firsthand, some fantastic readers have contributed some videos for us, and for all of you.

You can see the Orgrimmar version above, and the Stormwind version past the cut below. Neither video does the chaos of the event justice, but no video ever will. It's something you need to be there for, I think. No video gives you the "holy crap, did that just happen!?" feel of Varian Wrynn leaping through the air and tearing an abomination asunder. The fight between Thrall and Garrosh is ridiculously cool, too. I highly recommend trying to see these events before they go away, but these videos will do for now, and our thanks go out to Chrono of Silvermoon-EU and Ben H. for them.

This morning Nethaera, a community manager with Blizzard, posted the following on the general forums: "Perhaps something will be occurring before [the release of Wrath]. I guess it's something we'll have to wait and see."

This comes in a response to a question asking if there will be a couple more surprises before Wrath of the Lich King.

Of course Neth is being her usual vague self here, not really committing to anything one way or another. But the comment does raise an eyebrow, and the fact that she even decided to respond to the question without a definitive "no" is good enough to speculate that there might be another world event headed our way.

Three days and counting. There's so much excitement for the newest expansion -- I mean, look at us here at WoW Insider, we're going crazy giving away all sorts of wonderful swag just to celebrate the coming of Wrath (and probably to make up in advance for us not being around while we're busy playing the game. Sorry guys). What's happening inside the game to prepare us for Northrend?

Well, at the moment, it looks like... nothing. I mean, there was that phenomenally fun zombie invasion. I know a few of you found it annoying and disruptive, but come on! It was a game-changing event that really shook up Azeroth, even if only for a few days. When the zombie infestation ended earlier than we anticipated anticlimactically, we sort of expected something better to come. Well, it's been about a week now, and there's nothing new. Sure, the scourge invasion's still happening, but after hundreds and hundreds of Necrotic Runes and nothing else to buy, it's really kind of boring.

So was that it? An inspired zombie invasion and then nothing? That's kind of like running out of gas nearing the finish line. It's like opening the champagne before the guests arrive. If the zombie invasion had started a few days ago, I think the timing would've been absolutely perfect. Instead, our excitement (and sometimes frustration) got built up, escalating over a few days, then... poof. Nothing. It's like having a great first course of a meal and having the next course arrive so late that we've lost our appetite. How do you guys feel? Did Blizzard blow the timing of the zombie event? What else do they have planned? Whatever it is, they've only got a couple of days to unleash it.

We've been covering the news about Tenris Mirkblood, a temporary Scourge boss hanging out in Karazhan. Adam even has a handy strategy guide that will help you bring him down. The boss is pretty neat, dropping both a non-combat pet and the ultimate in two handed guitars -- the Arcanite Ripper.

Tigole warned us that the boss would only be around for about 10 days. As of just now, Tenris is still in Karazhan, waiting to dole out his badges, batlings, and axes. Now's the time to get in there, folks. We can't gaurantee how much longer he's going to be waiting for you to come kill him. The Scourge invasion reset and started again after it previously closed down, so this is probably as close to a "second chance" as you're going to get.

As a tip, be sure to pick up your Vampiric Batling, even if you already know the spell. The "Already Known" item sells for 10 gold to a vendor. Killing Tenris is at least worth a daily quest to you.

A bit earlier, I reported that many servers (including my own) witnessed the Scourge Invasion come to a close on their realms. This included the necropoleis retreating, the gloomy clouds overhead dissipating, and a bulk of the Argent Dawn forces taking their leave. A few hours later... it all came back.

It didn't just come back, it seems this portion has restarted entirely, 'kill counter' reset to zero. The clouds rolled back in, and the Argent Dawn tents in each capital poofed back into existence. Was its disappearance a bug with patch 3.0.3? Did the Scourge retreat after a certain number of battles won, and they weren't supposed to? The magic number we've been seeing thrown around is 300 battles, but we don't have anything to back that number up, just anecdotal evidence. A lot of people have said the same thing, but repetition doesn't mean it's true.

Not all servers saw this go down, so what happened? We have no idea, but the invasion is not over. It just sort of nodded off for a little. I guess the Herald of the Lich King needs a nap now and then.